7 June 2019
Youtube will begin abbreviating subscriber counts in August 2019

This change will create some consistency across subscriber counts in general, as the mobile and desktop apps have shown both formats in various displays. So, why did YouTube make these changes now? Will they have an impact on digital marketing? What will they mean for you?

What will these changes look like?

Beginning
at 1,000 subscribers, the public subscriber count that appears on a channel’s
home page and beneath videos will round down to the nearest thousand. For
example, a channel with 7,492 subscribers will show “7.4k” until they
hit 7,500. A channel with 14,304,323 subscribers will show “14M”
until the channel reaches 15,000,000.

These
changes will also show on third party apps that use YouTube’s API Services.

YouTube
has stated that the primary justification for this change is to achieve
consistency across all devices and formats.

Why did YouTube change their subscriber count
display?

YouTube
subscriber counts have been in the news in 2019, but not for encouraging
reasons. Concerns have been rising of a toxic subculture of cyber-bullying that
targets a channel’s subscriber count.

This issue hit fever pitch in April, when a feud between YouTube stars James Charles and Tati Westbrook was litigated through the rise and fall of their subscriber counts. Videos even sprang up on YouTube live-streaming the follower counts, as Charles’ count fell and Westbrook’s rose.

Who are the players involved?

James
Charles, a 20-year-old beauty vlogger, had been assisted in his rapid rise to
influencer stardom by Tati Westbrook, the 37-year-old beauty vlogger behind
YouTube’s GlamLifeGuru channel since 2010. As far as reach goes, Charles is the
larger figure in the YouTube beauty community, with over 13 million followers
compared to Westbrook’s (still sizeable) 6 million. Each of their videos garner
millions of views.

In April, Westbrook released a 43-minute video accusing Charles of betraying her trust, and the fallout from the feud exploded across social media. For YouTube influencers like Charles and Westbrook, the size of their follower counts is a measure of their value as influencers and a key indicator of how successful they can be parleying their online persona into a profitable brand. So, when James Charles bled over 3 million followers in ten days – among them several high-profile celebrities and beauty brands – the damage was to more than his reputation.

How did this affect social media?

The feud
laid bare the high stakes arena of influencer culture on social media. For
someone like James Charles, his personality is synonymous with his brand. The possibility
of a personal feud going viral and decimating his follower count has the
potential – deserved or not – to devastate his livelihood.

The Charles/Westbrook feud has been a baffling YouTube event. “Explained” and “reaction” videos have millions of views, and fed the scandal for weeks, driving plenty of traffic to the platform.

Nonetheless, YouTube has recognised the phenomenon of subscriber count monitoring as problematic. They’ve joined other social media platforms – like Instagram – in downplaying the value of subscriber/follower counts on their pages. This theoretically makes it harder for large groups of social media users to control livelihoods by targeting subscriber counts.

What do YouTube’s subscriber count changes mean for you?

YouTube’s changes to the formatting of its subscriber counts will have the immediate effect of valuing quality content over the social force of a high subscriber count. This change is similar to many of the hundreds of changes Google makes every year to its search algorithms. The changes in questions aim prioritise the value of content over peripheral factors that could manipulate the system.

Social media influences have leveraged these subscriber and follower counts to monetise their brands. Furthermore, companies have seized on the fast reach of influencers as a YouTube marketing opportunity. Many companies pay to have their products mentioned, praised, or used.

For the larger digital marketing community, YouTube’s changes demonstrate that social media platforms are working to better understand audience preferences.

While it may outwardly appear like a fairly benign move, changes such as these have the potential to alter user-experience dramatically over the long-term.

Finally, while this won’t affect most users, it remains to be seen how it will affect the platform’s heavyweights.

Rollan Schott is a copywriter with Pure SEO. Rollan was born and raised in the United States, having moved to New Zealand after 4 years teaching and writing in Asia. When he's not churning out quality content at breakneck speed, Rollan is probably busy writing the next great American novel. He may also be idly watching true crime documentaries in his Auckland Central apartment with his wife, Lauren. The latter is more likely than the former.

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